Environment

Dirty Snow Melts Arctic Faster!

by René | June 9, 2007 at 10:23 am

1219 views | 20 Recommendations | 2 comments

Dirty snow may warm Arctic as much as greenhouse gases

Burning cleaner fuel would brighten snow and lower temperatures.

If you are really worried about the Arctic Ice melting, Scientists suggest measures everyone can use right now to prevent the Arctic Ice from melting so fast! With much faster results than trying to reduce carbon dioxide.

[q]Irvine, Calif., June 6, 2007 The global warming debate has focused on carbon dioxide emissions, but scientists at UC Irvine have determined that a lesser-known mechanism 'dirty snow' can explain one-third or more of the Arctic warming primarily attributed to greenhouse gases.

“When we inject dirty particles into the atmosphere and they fall onto snow, the net effect is we warm the polar latitudes,” said Charlie Zender, associate professor of Earth system science at UCI and co-author of the study. “Dark soot can heat up quickly. It’s like placing tiny toaster ovens into the snow pack.”

Source: reneodeay.blogspot.com

[/q]

Scientists sometimes have trouble communicating with the average layman, the public,
so the quote above may be inappropriate, but that is what he said.

You can see the report direct from the University of California, Irvine

What occurred to me is that if this sooty fallout can effect the Arctic Ice, it is undoubtedly having an effect on the glaciers around the world also.

According to the scientists report, the soot, the dirty snow, actually melts the ice over 90% faster than the greenhouse gases effect. And that this kind of fallout has been happening since the start of the Industrial Revolution two hundred years ago! There has been a huge increase in this in the last 20 to 40 years also as more polluting plants are operated and all those forest fires.

The scientists' idea is: using cleaner fuels, not burning trash and rubbish and fields, forcing plants to clean up their emmissions, can have an immediate effect on the snow that falls on polar ice and on glaciers with the result of slowing down the melt.

0 See all footage | View Slideshow

Share: email story | add to any | | facebook | stumbleupon

recommend This comment thread is now closed

Jordan Yerman

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 11:24 on June 9th, 2007

Thanks for posting this... as a snowboarder, I'm a fan of bright snow. As a resident of Planet Earth, I'm not a fan of global warming.

ScienceDave

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 14:52 on June 9th, 2007

Good scientists never know "for sure", so its nice to see a new piece of the picture come to the public sphere. Thanks for posting this!

matte

at 17:29 on June 9th, 2007

Dark soot can heat up quickly. It’s like placing tiny toaster ovens into the snow pack.

Almost fell of my chair laughing at this...its nothing like that at all - nothing to do with it in fact.

Please at least in your postpresent something logical to encourage us to click through - like dark material absorbs heat, so if dark material is on the show it will absorb heat and melt the ice.

Toaster ovens, ha ha ha....